Pope Francis Searches for the American Dream in Philadelphia

It was a pulpit, but not a bully one. It was a simple wooden rostrum behind which a president once called for a new birth of freedom in 272 words that he wrongly predicted elsewhere in the speech that the world would not long remember. The plain little podium stood in front of a Georgian building that was constructed in the early, but eventually quite eventful, 18th century, a place where a group of men presumed to speak about truths We Held To Be Self-Evident and then, later, presumed to speak for We, The People, in forming a new government. On Saturday, from behind the podium that once held the Gettysburg Address, and in front of the building where was birthed both the idea of the United States of America and the country itself, Papa Francesco came to speak of immigrant dreams of freedom, and immigrant dreams of religious liberty.

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The other day, I mentioned that, since Paul VI spoke to the United Nations, popes generally have abandoned the royal We, a grammatical pretension that never would have occurred to itinerant rabbis or mystified fishermen in and around Nazareth, and the precise grammatical construction against which the men in the hall rebelled in 1776. They had a different sense of what was meant by the word We, a more expansive one, and a more challenging one, as well. So did the president who held together what they constructed. And so does the pope who stood behind the same modest pulpit.

It was here that the freedoms which define this country were first proclaimed. The Declaration of Independence stated that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that governments exist to protect and defend those rights. Those ringing words continue to inspire us today, even as they have inspired peoples throughout the world to fight for the freedom to live in accordance with their dignity. But history also shows that these or any truths must constantly be reaffirmed, re-appropriated and defended. The history of this nation is also the tale of a constant effort, lasting to our own day, to embody those lofty principles in social and political life. We remember the great struggles which led to the abolition of slavery, the extension of voting rights, the growth of the labor movement and the gradual effort to eliminate every kind of racism and prejudice directed at successive waves of new Americans. This shows that, when a country is determined to remain true to its founding principles, based on respect for human dignity, it is strengthened and renewed. All of us benefit from remembering our past. A people which remembers does not repeat past errors; instead, it looks with confidence to the challenges of the present and the future. Remembrance saves a people's soul from whatever or whoever would attempt to dominate it or use it for their interests.

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There are going to be people who take the pope's emphasis on "religious liberty" to mean support for the cramped, political utility of term as employed by the supporters of Kim Davis, the fame-drunk government layabout from Kentucky who was greeted like a living martyr at the Values Voter Summit, which followed the pope into Washington this weekend like a gathering of crows in the wake of an eagle. Once again, however, it is important to look at how the pope went beyond cheap slogans and subjected the phrase to the full gravity of its history, all the way back to William Penn, the Quaker who founded Pennsylvania as a refuge in which he could worship in his own way and who, during his tumultuous relationship with the British Crown, once was accused of being a secret Jesuit.

In this place which is symbolic of the American way, I would like to reflect with you on the right to religious freedom. It is a fundamental right which shapes the way we interact socially and personally with our neighbors whose religious views differ from our own. Religious freedom certainly means the right to worship God, individually and in community, as our consciences dictate. But religious liberty, by its nature, transcends places of worship and the private sphere of individuals and families. Our religious traditions remind us that, as human beings, we are called to acknowledge an Other, who reveals our relational identity in the face of every effort to impose a uniformity to which the egotism of the powerful, the conformism of the weak, or the ideology of the utopian would seek to impose on us.

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Even given the unique context of his current job, the pope on this visit has proven to be moved by a truly democratic sense of the spirit, and a love for the idea of the commons, which he takes to include the survival of the planet. That democratic spirit is wide and ranging in him. It brings him to interesting places. I am willing to bet something substantial that no pope ever has said anything like this:

If globalization seeks to bring all of us together, but to do so respecting each person, each individual person's peculiarity, that globalization is good and makes us good and grow and leads to peace. I like to use geometry here. If globalization is a sphere, where each point is equidistant from the centre, then it isn't good because it annuls each of us. But if globalization joins us as a polyhedron where we're all together but conserves the dignity of each ... that's good.

Later, during a speech to the World Meeting of Families, he got off on an unscripted riff about family dynamics that was grounded in all-too-human reality, and that was funny, besides.

There are some things we really need to take care of: the children, and grandparents. Children, whether they are young or older, they are the strength that moves us forward. We place our hope in them.Grandparents are the living memory of the family. They passed on the faith, they transmitted the faith, to us. To look after grandparents, children, is the expression of love. The people that does not care for its children or grandparents is a people that has not future. Because it doesn't have the strength or the memory to go forward…Families have a citizenship which is divine. The identity card they have is given to them by God. So that within the heart of the family, truth, goodness and beauty may truly grow. Some of you might say "Of course, father, you speak like that because you're not married! Families have the difficulties – families, we quarrel! And sometimes plates can fly. Children can bring headaches – and I won't speak about mothers in law!

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And thus does the chair of Peter transport itself to Grossinger's.

All of this may be obscured by the worshipful media coverage on the one hand – Please, CNN, get a fcking grip, will you? – and by the cheap way religion is used in our cheap and debased national politics. But is altogether remarkable that the leader of the institutional Roman Catholic Church, which has been paralyzed throughout its history by the residual authoritarianism that was baked into its structure when it was ruled by actual princes who has actual armies, coming to this country and talking more in tune with the nation's founding principles than most of the people presently running for president, someone who can put what Abraham Lincoln called the mystic chords of memory to use in playing a democratic tune.